Europe Can Lead the Globalisation of Compassion
When a fire broke out in the forest, all the animals fled — except a hummingbird that flew towards the flames. It had been born and raised in that forest and could not watch it burn without doing something. It carried a single drop of water in its beak: it wanted to do its part. […]
What Péter Magyar will do with the EU’s “unlimited” trust
Nearly a month after the vote and on the eve of the inauguration of the government led by Péter Magyar, Hungary is a hotbed of ideas and an emotional rollercoaster. The defeated are licking their wounds and eagerly awaiting the start of a Hungarian Tangentopoli. Among the victors, there is scarcely a corner of civil […]
Europe’s Path to Catching Up on AI – Before the Superpowers Leave It Behind
The world is witnessing the violent birth of a new era, defined by the rise of unleashed nationalist and imperialist forces. The phase that opened with the fall of the Berlin Wall — a time of extraordinary expansion of globalisation, democratic progress, and the construction of new international institutions — is over. In this new […]
The secret of success: fly fishing in Spain
The farther you travel to fish the more pressure you feel. That’s human nature. When you fly all the way down to Patagonia and it’s only natural to expect good things to happen. If the wind comes up, the water’s low, the trout are particular or you lose your dream trout then it’s a long […]
What is the film that best captures Europe? A selection
It has been a trying time for Europe, with tariffs and threats to NATO from the Trump administration, the Russians at its doorstep, the fallout from the wars in the Middle East, and anti-European forces gaining ground. There are also positive signs, such as Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in Hungary, the British government’s second thoughts […]
The EU’s main activity is taking the pulse of Trump’s hostility
The uncertainty created by Donald Trump’s tariffs May got off to the worst possible start for relations between the European Union and the United States. On top of the rift over the war with Iran and Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw five thousand American soldiers from Germany comes the increase in tariffs on European cars […]
European novels, music, art and the wisdom of uncertainty
16–17 MAY. EUROPEAN WRITERS’ FESTIVAL / LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM The European novel as a compass for the present In the New York Review of Books of 19 July 1984, Milan Kundera, in his essay “The Novel and Europe,” wrote that the European novel was born with modernity — with Don Quixote — as a form […]
We Ukrainians can teach Europeans to defend themselves against the Russian-Iranian threat
The night before this conversation, Alexander Kamyshin had managed to sleep — and in Ukraine, that detail is far from trivial. “It was one of the lucky nights. In the early hours of the morning I received a report indicating that four of our factories had been hit. None critically, and there were no casualties. […]
The Iran war has deepened the rift between America and Europe
For Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and one of the leading intellectuals of American global leadership, the war in the Middle East is a strategic mistake. “The United States has achieved remarkable results on the battlefield against Iran,” he tells us, “but the overall strategic picture is negative for Washington.” The central […]
In the studio of Cultural Forces, among the soldiers who keep up the morale of other soldiers
A dense conifer forest in winter, and among the tall trees, barely visible, black FPV drones bursting into the natural beauty: it is a painting that forms part of the project “New Military Landscape.” “We show how the spaces of Ukraine have changed during the war,” says painter Ihor Husyev, standing in the middle of […]